For a Woman's Need

by Roy Norton

 

FOR A WOMAN'S NEED

By Roy Norton

JUMPED, by thunder!” was Sandy's comment as he laboriously spelled out the regulation claim-notice, showing its white spot on the bark of a giant fir; “Claim's been jumped by one A. Burrows.”

He leaned his ax against the foot of the tree, pushed his dingy old white hat back on his shock of brick-red hair, hitched up his trousers by the belt, and again read the notice. There was no mistaking it. There was a rival claimant for this patch of timber in the almost impenetrable wilderness of the Olympics, where for more than a year he had abided with the proud feeling of possession.

Claim-jumping, in a mining way, was not a new thing to him, but here in the big woods it seemed a little out of place. It was bewildering, and the method of its fighting would be new. He sat down on a small log and looked at the staring white sign, as if trying to read from it a solution of the difficulty. He might tear the notice off the tree, but that wouldn't do any good. Now, if only it were a mining claim, the procedure would be simple, namely, take a gun and fill the “jumper” full of lead.

Sandy straightened himself up and sighed. He had decided that this should be the method in this case, if he were driven to it.

“I'm the peacefullest cuss that ever lived,” he mourned as he turned away, “but they're always gettin' me cornered where there ain't nothin' to do but shoot. Then I gets shot up some, may be, and am sorry a heap, because I had to shoot the other fellow up.”

The world looked pretty forlorn to him, as he picked his way along a trail] through the woods to his cabin, and for once the birds and squirrels who knew him and expected greeting were given no recognition.

His path led through timber such as but few men know; it was a Titanic forest of monstrous trees in which he wandered a pygmy. Here and there a giant had fallen, sending his three hundred feet of length crashing downward to a resting-place, and presenting a twenty-foot barrier to those who would cross him in his proneness. Perhaps another giant, having lived out his life of hundreds of years, had dropped across the first, and still others piled themselves on, until the barrier was completely uncrossable.

Around one of these obstructions, the troubled Sandy came in sight of his cabin, where it nestled in a little clearing, with all its evidences of habitation. From the doorway a three-legged dog arose, and, with much effort, gave a home greeting. Even in the stress of his trouble, the tall master stopped long enough to pet the waiting head and take a kindly look into the eyes that sought his.

“Dick,” he said, “we've been pards ever since I dragged you out from under a street-car, way down in Seattle, and we've most always had some kind of a home since then; but now they're goin' to try to take this one away from us and make us hit the trail again.”

Dick seemed to understand, although he said nothing. He was not a talkative dog, his strong point being sympathy. He felt the gravity of the situation, and hobbled after his master into the cabin.

“Thar you go again,” Sandy reproachfully said as he entered, this time addressing his remarks to a mischievous wood-mouse who calmly sat on a shelf and looked at him while washing off with his diminutive forepaws the unmistakable signs of flour-dust from his whiskers.

“Here I lugs a sack of flour twenty miles into the woods, and you jest won't let it alone, even when I makes friends with you and feeds you till you're fat.” The mouse showed no sign of fear, and with twinkling eyes continued his toilet, as Sandy, with arms akimbo, stood in front of him and delivered his scolding. “Well, you little cuss,” he concluded, “you ain't like men, you don't know no better.” He laid a coaxing hand on the edge of the shelf, and the mouse accepted the truce by scampering up Sandy's arm to his shoulder.

Sandy prepared his homely woodsman's meal, finished it with a woodsman's appetite, and seated himself with lighted pipe on a bench in front of his cabin. But this night there were no interludes of whistling or singing; his trouble was upon him. It seemed strange that through all the years, stretching away back to those of the desert sands, when he had been alternately packer, cow-puncher, miner, or woodsman, he who loved peace and quiet should be compelled always to fight, and fight, and fight. Now he was facing another fight. “Old Miss Trouble must have been my godmother,” he said aloud, as he prepared for his night's rest. “I hanker after the peaceful life, but I'm goin' to kill any damn man that tries to git this claim, an' the man might as well be A. Burrows as B., otherwise known as Sandy, Smith.”

It had been many months since the heavy Colt's was taken down from its peg upon the cabin wall, but when Sandy started into the woods on the following morning, it was grimly strapped around his hip, and his belt was filled with cartridges. And this was not the last day when the gun sagged against his thigh, as he traversed his little domain, patiently waiting for the appearance of “A. Burrows.”

When the time came, it was almost as a surprise. It was one bright forenoon when the air was redolent with the fragrance of bloom, and the dew lay heavily in the hollows of the tangled blackberry and rhododendron bushes, that the storm burst. Sandy had grown somewhat older in these days of waiting. His quick ear caught the unusual sound of voices, and, by the tree where the first location-notice had been posted, he waited.

Through the woods, with axes gleaming across the packs on their backs, with rifles in hand, and steady tread, came four woodsmen.

“Hello!” they said, in the way of greeting to the tall, grim man who barred their way.

Sandy wasted no time in civilities. “Lookin' for this?” he queried, pointing at the white claim-notice which stared at them unwinkingly.

“If that's the Burrows location, we shore are,” came the reply from the man who was evidently the leader of the party.

“Well, that's it, and ye kin save yer eyesight,” said Sandy grimly. “But it ain't goin' to do ye no good, because I owns this claim, and I reckon I'm goin' to keep on ownin' it.”

“The hell you are! We been sent up here to put a cabin on it, and I reckon we're goin' to keep on and do it,” came the retort. “Ef there's any dispute about it, it's up to you to go to the cote and fix it. We're goin' to build, and, what's more, we hev bumped into you squatters a heap o' times afore this.”

The arrivals had slipped off their packs and were clustered around their leader. Sandy had held his temper well, but now “Miss Trouble” was here. He lashed out with his knotted right fist, caught the foreman a hammerlike blow on the chin, and doubled him up in the air. Here was a kind of squatter that hadn't been met before.

A whirlwind couldn't have worked faster. The four struck at him, and kicked him, and endeavored to bring him to the ground. He felt himself being overpowered, and worked his hand to the butt of his revolver. It spoke with one quick snap, and the snarl was untangled.

One man seized a useless shoulder, through which the bullet had torn its way, and the others sprang for their weapons. Sandy tried to wing one of them, and found that his remaining cartridges were defective.

This wouldn't do. He must take to cover and put in fresh ones. He jumped, with long leaps, toward one of the barriers of fallen trees, and sought shelter. As he dropped down behind his logs, two rifle-bullets sang dangerously past his head, and went “flick-flicking” through the tree tops.

Sandy stood behind a log, with feverish energy threw out the cartridges which had failed him in his need, and inserted fresh ones from his belt. Then he clambered along to a point where he could catch a sight of his battle-field, and took a survey. Not a target was in sight. He worked his way back, cut a stick, and shoved his hat upward to the top of the log, trying to draw his enemies' fire. It was effective, and the old hat went sailing to the ground behind him. He rushed to a point of observation, and took another look, but nowhere was an enemy in sight. Not even a rifle-barrel protruded from behind any of the forest giants, who calmly furnished shelter.

Sandy recovered the hat, and from a new point of vantage tried his ruse. It failed to attract attention. Plainly his opponents were enemies of no mean caliber. An old trick could be played upon them once, but that was all. He must either retreat or use new tactics. The first alternative was untenable, because he “never had run yit,” and the second meant a reconnoiter. Sandy made his way around the thicket, and by the aid of another fallen log gained an angle, from which he peered. An elbow was in sight. He would practise on that.

“Whang” went his pistol, and the elbow lurched violently, and smothered oaths told that the shot had been well aimed. Sandy smiled. The joy of battle was on him. He felt that exultation which comes from deadly strife. He wanted to yell. It would have helped him, he felt sure. He caught sight of a head, and fired, but evidently missed. That bothered him a little. Misses were not in his line. It must be the fault of the cartridges again.

Once more he emptied his pistol and carefully inspected each load as he placed it in its chamber. “Too bad,” he mused, “to lose that last shot! Fellers that sell no-account cartridges like these ought ter have the law on 'em. Goin' ter smash that feller one, next time I see him.”

Then the battle became slow. Sandy couldn't work farther around his barricade, and, peep as he would, he could catch no sight of an enemy. Well, they being the strongest, it was “up to” them to come and hunt him. He would wait.

Bees hummed busily through the air, seeking the blossoms of the woodland for the gathering of their spoil. The birds returned and began their twittering, and from off in the forest a woodpecker's hammer recommenced a tapping into the bark. In the distance the cooing of a wild pigeon lent a melancholy note. The time crept forward, and, on each side, the combatants waited for the next move. Sandy was getting restless, and had almost resolved to take a chance on creeping in a wide détour around his men, and by this flanking movement to gain a shot or two.

From back of him came a sound of footsteps, padding across the needles. He threw himself at length upon the ground and wriggled his way to a place where no shot might reach. So his enemies had “beat him to it,” and were rounding him up? Woe be to the first one who came in sight! What was the fool doing, anyway?

“Whoof,” came a snort from the rear. Sandy recognized the sound as being the satisfied grunt of a brown bear, who, in fancied security, had made his way to a thicket of blackberries. But what was that other sound? More footsteps, and then a louder snort from the bear, a woman's scream, and the noise of tearing thickets as the animal plunged through the underbrush in flight.

The red-headed one, forgetful of danger, with curiosity at highest pitch, his composure startled by this wonderful occurrence of that unusual sound—a woman's voice—stretched his head over his rear breastwork and yelled “Hello!”

In his excitement, he raised his head too high, and a rifle-ball went whizzing through the top of his hat. Sandy ducked down, while from out in front a man's voice broke into curses directed at the one who had fired the shot.

“Can't you see,” the voice expostulated, “that maybe she's in range over there—you damn fool!”

Sandy paid no heed to this remark, and it is doubtful if he even heard it, because all his attention was attracted toward the great unusual, the feminine side.

“Help! Help!” the woman's voice called. “Ugh! There was a great big bear here a minute ago, and I have fallen off a log into the bushes, and I can't get up, and there may be whole herds of bears down here in the dark, for all I can see. Why don't you help me?”

“Jest keep yer shirt on a minute,” Sandy called reassuringly, “and I'll get around and help you. I'm a trifle busy out in front just now.” Then he tried to make the wait easier by assuring her that the “b'ar had hiked, and there wa'n't nothin' down there to hurt her.”

“But why don't you come at once?” the voice insisted.

“Got to kill a few fellers out here in front first,” Sandy apologized. “Ef it wa'n't for that, I'd come now:”

The voice was silent for a moment, as the woman evidently tried to think over a situation that made it necessary for a man to “kill a few fellers” before coming to her aid.

“Hey, you!” came a masculine voice from out in front.

“Yep,” responded Sandy.

“Woman back thar?”

“Yep.”

“Must be Missus Burrows. S'pose we call it quits till we talk to her.”

Sandy's gun went back into his holster with a muffled snip. So this voice was Mrs. Burrows, the wife of A. Burrows, the man who was trying to rob Sandy of all he had in the world! It made no difference, she was a woman and in distress. The fight could wait. He would accept the truce; but it should be merely a truce, and no more. They couldn't have his claim.

“It's a go,” he called to the enemy, and then, trusting to the chivalry of the frontier, paid no more attention to them and devoted himself to the rescue of the feminine voice.

Down in a cleft, between two great trees that had given up their lives and had sought rest on the ground, enmeshed in blackberry bushes, with torn garments and disheveled hair, he found her. She was sobbing as he came. He reassured her, and had led her from the thicket out into the open, before his late adversaries came upon them.

They grouped themselves silently around. Sandy glared at them uncompromisingly. Two of them had rudely bandaged arms, and one had the haggard look of a man who has lost much blood. Dimly the woman realized that she had interrupted a tragedy.

“Oh, you are hurt!” she said, as she looked at the men. Then, turning to Sandy, she continued: “You see, these men work for me. I bought a claim from a locator down in Seattle, and hired these men to come and build my cabin—and now—and now two of them are hurt.”

She turned toward them as Sandy sternly motioned to them to keep silence. They saw from his attitude that something inexplicable had happened, and acquiesced. They stood awkwardly, while she looked from one to the other in vague questioning.

“You see, I fell, and my rifle went off—and—and, well, I got scratched jest a leetle mite,” said the man with the shattered elbow, and Sandy loved him for the lie.

“Yes, jest an accident,” glibly chimed in the foreman.

They looked from one to the other, and the foreman brought relief by suggesting that it was time to make camp. One man began the opening of their packs, while the wounded were cared for. Sandy took grim satisfaction from the thought that the shot that caught the elbow had been a good one. But there was the woman.

“So you are 'A. Burrows'?” he said.

“Yes. You see, my full name is Anna, but I have been writing it with the initial so long, since my husband died, that it comes natural now.” And her laughter smote upon him as a blow.

Here was his enemy—a woman. And it was her men whom he had fought, and it was her claim-notice that threatened him, and she a widow, who had paid money to professional locators, to put her upon his ground. Yes—his ground! Ground that he had paid for with money and labored effort, and by following the maze of the law's technicalities. “His home!” The home that he had built and loved with a tenderness that came of years of longing for it. Anyway, thinking took time, and he must find the right way out.

So Sandy told Mrs. Burrows that he had a good cabin below there, and that she must be his guest that night at least, and until her men got a camp established. He urged his hospitality, and the foreman added his insistence.

As they walked down the trail and came in sight of its homely comfort, she went into ecstasies over its trimness and picturesqueness, and over the great, majestic view of peaks and valleys that stretched away in the distance from the brow of the hill. But every word of praise, that but a few days ago would have gladdened the big man's heart, was as a knife-thrust, searching out and opening up to him those things which he had always seen and felt, but could not have put into words.

For once Dick got no word of greeting. Two big, rough hands held the head up where the eyes could be looked into, but his master was beyond words. Could he have spoken he would have said: “Dick, Dick, they want our home.”

It wasn't a very reassuring tale that Sandy listened to that night, and when he went out to roll himself into his blankets beneath the stars, having surrendered his rooftree to his guest, sleep failed to close his eyelids. He was fighting a battle which must be his alone.

The widow had no other means than those which had been paid to the locators (“timber-sharks,” Sandy silently called them), and had come into these solitudes to make for herself and her son a home which would render them independent, when the lumber companies came with the big mills to turn the giant trees into gold. The wait would not be long, especially as this claim was one of the most desirable in the region. Two or three years at the most, and Mrs. Burrows would be surrounded by farms instead of by forests, and she would be beyond want for life. But Sandy had seen that and more, too. For in this cabin, which rested on the hill back of him, was that consummation of his years of dreams—a “home.” Every log in the humble pile had been squared with infinite care and sentiment; every shelf and homely convenience within it had carried a portion of his heart; and every “shake” in the roof had been to him but one step more toward a permanent shelter. The splendid ring of his adze had sung to him, to the tune of the wilderness, that at last his days of traveling and travail were at an end.

What should he do? What could he do? To contest the claim was, of course, to win, because his title was clear and unimpeachable. But to do so would end the dreams of a woman, a creature of the weaker sex, a portion of mankind that was to be fought for instead of against, that was to be treated tenderly and with reverence, that was unable to fight its own battles.

In the cabin, yonder, she slept, dreaming even more beautiful dreams than Sandy had ever known, of a home to be. And, worst of all, she probably thought the real owner was a “squatter,” one of those shiftless, ignominious tramps of the wilderness, despised by all “homesteaders” as well as by Sandy Smith.

Dick came, and, with a cold muzzle, tried to explain that he was surprised at his own sleeplessness, and was in sympathy with his master's. And from the dog Sandy took comfort.

“You old rascal,” he said, patting the head which had been laid trustingly beside his, “you're worth a dozen timber-sharks, an' you don't suffer as much as lots of men. Your game ain't been an easy one, either, what with losin' your leg. Jest go to sleep and thank the Lord that you got your tail left. There's a heap o' satisfaction in bein' able to wag along.”

When her men reported at the cabin door in the morning, they found it open, the morning meal out of the way, and Sandy busily making up a pack. Again he glowered at them and took satisfaction from the appearance of the bandaged ones. He clumped into the cabin and took down the moldering pack-straps from their peg, drew them tightly around his canvas-covered blankets in which were wrapped his bacon, beans, flour, and tea; he added the frying-pan, coffee-pot, and ax to the outer lashings. Then he swung the pack to his back and settled his shoulders into the arm-straps. He picked up the rifle at his feet, and stood in the cabin door.

“Missus Burrows,” he said, his voice husky with emotion, “you kin have this cabin and all that's in it. It's on your land, you know, because I ain't nothin' but a squatter. Hope you like the place.”

Before she could reply, he was gone out to where her men squatted on a log.

“Damn you!” he snarled as he stood before them. “Don't think I'm leavin' because there's four of you. I'm goin' on off out into the west, somewhere where there ain't no stakes, to take a new claim. An' unless it's a woman who jumps it, there ain't men enough in the Olympics to take the new claim away frum me.”

The thrusting of Dick's nose into his unoccupied hand aroused other thoughts. He turned back to the open door wherein stood the woman.

“I'd be much obliged if you'd take good care of Dick fur me,” he said, “because he cain't travel much. I had to lug him on my back most of the way up here, an' I've got a long ways to go—maybe the trail won't never end. Be good to him. He's a good fellow, even if he ain't got but three legs.”

Then with a final scowl at the men, he swung out and into the darkness of the woods, while behind him, a crippled dog threw his head into the air and howled mournfully. It was the farewell of desolation.

Weeks of weary quest passed over Sandy's tired head. Go as he would, there was no spot open to him, no place which could be considered desirable, that welcomed him as a claimant, and no niche wherein he might with security rebuild his home. Time and again he had faced starvation, and always hardship and fatigue had been his only companions. It was useless. He had decided, with a weary heart, to make his way back out of this country where everything worth having had been taken, go to Seattle, and turn his face to the far North. His route led him near the old home. He hungered for a sight of Dick and for the companionship of his great sympathetic eyes and caressing nose.

The trees took on a familiar look as he neared his old border-line, and he thought bitterly of his relinquishment of all that life had held for him there. He came suddenly on a new clearing and a new cabin, and stopped in amazement.

A sunny-faced woman stepped to the open door, and a dog sprang past her awkwardly, making his way with mouthings of welcome to Sandy's side. The man knelt on the ground and took the big, kindly beast's head in his hands, and held it against his face. Here at last was a friend.

“What did you do it for?” Mrs. Burrows asked, “The locators came the day after you left, and said that there had been a mistake, and that my claim was the one adjoining yours. They said that you clearly owned the one which you lived on; and then I heard all about the fight. We tried to find you, but you had gone, no one knew where. After they had built this for me, I took care of your place, too, because both Dick and I knew you would come back some time. Why did you ever give it up? Go back to it. It's yours, and we have all been keeping it for you.”

“Two of us is workin' for her now,” said a man with a bandaged arm who came up, “and we want to be your friends. You're worth knowing.”

Sandy, overjoyed and dazed, walked down the trail.

There before him, with freshly planted flowers in front of the cabin, and other marked evidences of improvement and attention, stood “home.” In the fading light of the west, where the dying sun lighted up their snow-clad peaks and left in shadow their somber forests, stood the hills—his hills—unchanged and waiting and welcoming.

A weary man entered the silent cabin where everything stood as of old, and bowed his head upon his hands over the little pine table, while his body was shaken with sobs. And at his feet a crippled dog nestled with a great sigh of contentment.